Good idea... https://discord.gg/KRFBPXv

What effect would emu have on load times?

if you can stream/record on twitch that's about all that's needed. I just have a powered splitter and Diamond VC500 capture device hooked up to my laptop for streaming. PS2 or Xbox is fine. I don't really know the difference between them in regards to load times, but it seems PS2 is faster (but slower when saving).

Allesia is strong enough melee-wise that she would be viable. Bless and Divine Strength would be a nice little addition. However, her potential is only realized after her upgrade quest when she gets Combat Reflexes, Improved Critical and Sunder (you CAN obtain ComRef and ImpCrit through gems in gloves though). An Extreme Mode Co-op would be a great spot for Alessia, tbh.

The more runners the merrier!

The only thing I'd have to say on a co-op run would be that you shouldn't mix a normal with an unlockable character, just to keep with how the site is set-up so far. It can always change as there becomes more interest (or any interest, lol).

As for characters, I'd guess that Dorn + Vhaidra would be the best because of their massive melee output. Ysuran could come into consideration because of Haste, but why limit yourself to one character doing damage when you can have two?

I've done a couple Level-1 Extreme Mode runs with Ysuran now, and wowza they are tough. Got a 2:55, though, so that's pretty satisfactory for me. I bet I could still save around 3-5 minutes on the run, especially since I died twice to Mordoc and had to kill Xanhast 3 times, ugh. I'm going to post my level-up strats for the extreme mode runs pretty soon.

I am offering $20 to anyone who runs this game in under 2 hours. $100 for WR!

Have fun

got a 1:38 with several deaths. 1:29.xx is the goal.

Just did two Extreme Mode runs and finished with 1:58 then 1:51.xx.... It was a lot of fun and a lot more difficult than I thought it would be. Had to buy and use a TON of potions. Also only bought one Imperial Morning Star cuz lack of gold... Also ranged weapon is completely meaningless, lol. Once you're at Act III you can buy Flawless Great Swords for 64,000 gold. I only bought one because I needed so much money for potions.

The bosses aren't nearly as tough as a Normal Mode run. Diptolpt is tough but has a pattern you can exploit. Aizagora can one-hit kill you with a Fire Blast, but you can somewhat anticipate that. Illudra is no where near as dangerous as on Normal cuz the ice cubes don't do much... Nightwalker's purple mist is about half as dangerous. And the final 4 bosses are hard to hit, but don't one-hit kill you and you really shouldn't get hit by them anyways...

Anyway, very fun run that I hope to optimize in the next 30-50 tries or so. The enemies around the maps, especially in the Oceanic Urn mission and Orb of Thunder mission are the biggest health potion drains. 90 potions will only take you so far, lol.... I hope one of you guys can try it out soon.

My second run of this was interrupted by crappy internet. Thanks Mediacom. I'll do a run that's satisfactory to me and also a single segment on twitch video soon enough.

So just got done going through a run on Normal with Dorn and got him up to level 32. Equipped +4 wisdom boots/rings/amulets in Act II then upgraded them all to +5 in Act III. Every passive feat and attack that I wanted are fully leveled, so all I need to do is run Extreme Mode! It'll be interesting to route that mode. I'm thinking I'll kill a bunch of the guys on the first screen just to get some potions and gold, then buy two Imperial Morning Stars and the Flawless Throwing Ax and just take weapon upgrades as they come. Probably the lowest weapon that will replace the morning stars will be Superior Great Sword and Grand Great Ax, both of which are common enough on Extreme Mode. So anyway, we'll see how it goes. I'll probably do about 5-10 runs just to get a semi-acceptable time. Maybe this mode will be more fun, but I'm guessing it will just be a lot of sprinting.

A single run with any character, complete all side quests, kill all enemies, open all chests, search all weapon racks, including those found in multiple acts such as Wood of Sharp Teeth and Skull Gorge. I think it would take about 8-10 hours. The toughest would be the foundations. Fire is really tough to navigate and Air has all those islands with tornadoes throwing rocks at you... I'm not gonna include it, I just mentioned it as a lol sort of thing.

Categories created! I put the level-1/14 extreme challenges under the Miscellaneous area, just to keep the page fairly clean. Do we dare create a 100% category?

I don't think there would need to be a "maximum level allowed" at all. I just THINK I got up to level 30 before, not 100% sure though because I haven't done a casual run in ages... I'm perfectly ok with however people want to set up the Extreme Mode run as long as it's a fresh file from a single run. I doubt it's possible to get to level 40 on a single run and that was my main concern for defining an Extreme run: could you import any character, even a maxed one? There obviously needs to be an element of trust involved for people submitting runs, but for the most part I think people would comply with the one playthrough rule without problem.

Unlockable character Extreme category? yay or nay

I agree that Dorn would be the top dog for the extreme mode speedrun. Vhaidra might be usable too because she needs no drops to be unstoppable, and she gets Stealth. The Flawless Throwing Knife with Hail of Knives would add an interesting element, but you would probably need to upgrade it to be most effective and the workshop will cost you time.

I would rather keep the categories simple instead of allowing weapons, armor and trinkets to start with. If we allowed an item, it wouldn't truly be a "start the game, finish the game as fast as possible" sort of thing. It would become more of a new game plus sort of thing, does that make sense? Probably 99% of the games on this site make you start the game with a fresh file. Maybe it's just me, but that's how I feel speedruns should be done: on a brand new file. This game is kind of unique in that you start Extreme Mode runs with an imported character (you even have to create a save file to import a level-1 character) and that is why I was hesitant to make an Extreme Mode category. But I think if we make a definition that the import has to come from a single playthrough and start with the basic equipment it would still have the feel of a "fresh file" run.

As for maximum leveling, I think I've got up to, or even past, level 30 on a Normal Mode playthrough. Lots of pearls in rings/amulets/boots. You could even get it higher if you did 2-player mode and used two characters that could buy experience. Or you could get Dorn to a higher level by going through 2p mode just for that added exp.

Should we even consider unlockable characters for the extreme mode categories? We could create a separate chart for level-1 (actually it would be 14) Extreme Mode I guess. But they're kind of similar to the rest of the characters once the others catch up in leveling, so it would be kind of pointless to make a separate chart for them. Would it be prudent to not allow unlockables for extreme mode runs or should they be included?

Once I get more input, I'll make the Extreme charts. Thanks guys.

I've been mulling it over and I think I'll be adding the extreme categories over the next few days, cuz why not? I really wish I woulda noticed these posts on the forum earlier, but with a couple settings adjustments I should get notifications now... I honestly hadn't made any other categories because I wasn't aware there was interest, but hey, two people now! haha.

I think the extreme mode category would be pretty similar to the normal mode run in strategy... just sprint through the whole thing. But you would have to consider killing enemies early on to gather some gold for potions and weapons. The cool thing is, the extreme mode option would make the other characters relevant because the option to buy some really powerful weapons during Act I is there.

The Level 1 extreme category would favor Ysuran, IMO. As I recall, his Skeleton pet is incredibly powerful in the early going and you can stay relatively safe with it. Also the spell which he controls the undead is amazingly helpful. Add Haste, Shield, Ray of Enfeeblement and you get a nearly unstoppable machine. Getting to that point might be tricky, though, and deciding how to build him to deal out maximum damage to bosses would need to be considered. You're not going to have Shadow Spray because the upgrade quest would cost you a lot of time, so maybe a touch-based Necro?

thanks for your interest, Mriddles! I replied on the other thread with my ideas, so make sure you check it out. There certainly could be categories for Extreme with an imported character, but only from a single run (no importing a character from an extreme mode file with beefed up weapons, etc.) We could also have a Level-1 extreme mode category, but I figured that would be pretty insane... Extreme mode playthroughs are difficult enough!

for extreme with an imported character, I guess we could limit it to, "must be imported from a previous normal mode run". The main reason I didn't add extreme mode (yet) was because I figured someone would import a level 40 character and just sprint through the whole thing without a care in the world...

But this would indeed add a new layer to the speedrun. Dorn would more than likely become the ideal character to use (maybe Ysuran even) and the sheer difficulty of extreme mode would make the run interesting and challenging. A very thorough run on normal with plenty of Wisdom gaining trinkets would be the best way to go about it. I like the idea, thanks for posting.

Someone join me in speedrunning this fun game! Yeah, this is a desperation call to anyone who plays this game and would consider speedrunning it.